


Rikku Goes to the Moon

by Qu_Marsh



Series: Yuna & Rikku's Excellent Adventures [2]
Category: Final Fantasy I, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy X-2, Metroid Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Coming of Age, Dramedy, F/M, Gen, Parody, Public Speaking, Space Flight, Space Race, The Moon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1791619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qu_Marsh/pseuds/Qu_Marsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frustrated that Yuna doesn't want to go out adventuring, Rikku volunteers for Spira's new space program to prove she's tough enough for a solo adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

When Spira needed help, it could always turn to Lady Yuna—and when Yuna needed help, she could always turn to her No. 1 sidekick.

That was the way it always worked. Each morning, Rikku would bound up the steps to Yuna and Tidus's house—usually while the High Summoner herself was still sleeping in—and take up residence in her home office in the back. She'd start the day with a sudoku puzzle while she enjoyed her morning coffee in the "World's Best Sidekick" mug Yuna that had commissioned for her. And then she'd get to work: She would fight off Shelinda's constant interview requests before Yuna could agree to them (Yunie had never been very good at saying "no" to her friends), translate the Al Bhed newspapers so that Yuna could keep abreast of world news (Yuna also wasn't very good at foreign languages), and do the Yuna And Tidus Foundation's taxes (lest Yunie accidentally divide by zero again). And some days, she stopped by Lulu and Wakka's to give little Vidina his Al Bhed lessons. 

But not today. 

Today, Spira's Space Age was about to begin, and Rikku was going to spend all morning watching the rocket launch. 

She pushed and shoved her way through the crowd on Besaid Island's beach until she had a clear view of the sleek, silver rocket stretching high above the trees. In a nearby control tower, Shinra's hand hovered over the switch that would start the countdown. 

But Rin, always the consummate salesman, couldn't resist the opportunity to first say a few words. "Three years ago, this all began with a simple question: 'We have all this rocket fuel, now what the hell are we going to do with it?' Today, that journey will culminate with the launch of the Spiran Space Agency's first unmanned satellite, _Crossover I_ , which will orbit our planet for the next two months before landing in my backyard pool." 

Rikku nodded eagerly. A reporter from the _Ogopogo Examiner_ newspaper began writing a headline: _SPIRA PUTS ROCKET IN SPACE - Bold new era of human progress awaits - A Man on the Moon? - Inside: The Marvels of Science_

A loud rumble interrupted the rest of Rin's speech. In the distance, a tall green rocket surfaced from the dunes. Attached to the side of the rocket, two booster rockets, one higher than the other, lifted the rocket higher. As the vehicle rose above the level of the trees, they saw a second pair of booster rockets, also attached at awkward angles, protruding from the bottom. 

Something small and green brushed past Rin, and before he realized it, his microphone had been stolen right out of his inventory. "Too slow, Spira!" the cactuar announced to the crowd. "While you're wasting time with unmanned probes, our _Cactnik I_ will carry our brave space-o-naut, Toumeya, on his mission to become the first _living being_ in space. The Cactuar Nation will win this space race!" 

The reporter scribbled a new headline: _CACTUAR NATION PUTS CACTUAR IN SPACE - Dystopian era of killer robots looms - Death Lasers From Space? - Inside: Science Will Kill Us All_

The cactuars' green rocket rose into the clouds while Rin's still sat on the launchpad. Rikku clutched her hands to her face in horror. "What? That's cheating! They're tiny and don't have to store food capsules because they have photosynthesis!" 

Rin vaulted off his podium and raced after the cactuar. "That's _my_ microphone! Come back here!" Unfortunately, cactuars were skilled at nothing if not running away, and he found himself chasing the little green creature in circles around the beach. 

Rikku was tapped on the shoulder. "We've got to up the ante," Shinra said. "Do you have a dog or a monkey or even just a large houseplant we can throw in our rocket?" 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You can't send my Ghiki up. He's a sensitive li'l monkey." 

Meanwhile in Kilika, Ghiki was eating a banana and scratching his butt. 

Rin finally caught up to the cactuar and grabbed his microphone back. "There will not be a rocket gap!" he proclaimed. "Now I've never mentioned this, least of all to the engineering team, but by the end of next year, I plan to have a probe orbiting the moon, which will—" 

With a flying vault, the cactuar stole the microphone again. "By the end of next year, the Cactuar Nation will have a cactus planted _on_ the moon!" 

Rin snatched the microphone right back. "And by the end of _this_ year, we'll have a human planted on the moon! Er, not planted. But Spira will commit itself to achieving the goal, before this year is out, of landing a human being on the moon. The next year, we'll work on getting him back." 

A second cactuar, who had been camouflaging himself as a bonsai plant, sprang out of hiding to grab Rin's microphone. "The Cactuar Nation can _also_ grow a cactus on the moon this year. Also, the cactuar will be decorated with lights, and we'll be giving out free T-shirts and have an open bar." 

Rin slammed his fist on the podium. "Fuck it, let's do it live! We're going to the moon _right now_!" he roared, not even bothering to chase after the microphone again. "The Spiran Space Agency will be embarking on a voyage to the moon as soon as we can find two people reckless and foolhardy enough to strap themselves in an experimental rocket on a unproven mission into outer space." 

Rikku jumped up. "Ooh! That's me! Me me me!" She turned and ran in a non-stop beeline through the jungle, not stopping even to catch her breath until she reached Besaid Village. 

She stumbled to a halt in Yuna's kitchen, where Yuna was chopping fish for lunch. "Yuna, do you want go to the _moon_ with me?" 

"When?" 

"How about RIGHT NOW?" 

Yuna blanched. "I can't. I've got plans." 

"But ... the _moon_! Adventure! Fiends! Randomly placed treasure chests! There might be _spheres_ up there, Yunie!" 

Yuna looked torn—she was never one to turn down an adventure—but eventually shook her head. "I know, but I just can't drop everything and go on an adventure whenever you want, Rikku." She added by way of explanation, "Tidus and I already had plans to go up to Luca next week to see the Blitzball Hall of Fame; we've really been looking forward to it." 

Rikku folded her arms. "Okay, fine. We'll go later, but you have to know Leblanc might beat us to it. When are you free next?" 

Yuna's shoulders sagged. "I really don't know." 

Well, this blew. It sucked that Yuna wasn't up for an adventure, and it double-sucked that _she_ had to miss out a trip to the moon because of it. 

But on the way out of the house, she ran into one of her other favorite people: Tidus. "Big T! Do _you_ want to go to the moon with me?" 

"Yuna and I already had plans to go up to Luca next week to see the Blitzball Hall of Fame; we've really been looki—" 

"Okay, fine, I get it. Everyone's laughing and riding and blitzballing except Rikku." She threw up her hands. Did no one want an _adventure_ any more? 

As she stormed out of the house, everything she saw seemed to remind her of her secondary status: her World's Best Sidekick mug, her Best Supporting Actress award from the "Real Emotion" music video, the second of her two fiddles. 

She stopped on the doorstep outside, fuming. Why was she always the sidekick in someone else's adventure? What made everyone else's priorities and dreams so much more important than hers? Why couldn't things turn out the way _she_ wanted for once? She usually _liked_ helping Yuna, felt proud of working behind the scenes to help lift Spira's greatest hero up to the lofty heights she always achieved. Rikku didn't expect the same kind of recognition or celebrity as Yuna—after all, they never gave Chewbacca a medal, did they?—and she had no desire to be the leader out there giving speeches to millions of people. But just once, she wanted to know that she could matter as much as anyone else. 

She stared up into the morning sky, at the gibbous moon hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. She'd thought this whole space program would be a testament to what people were capable of, yet now it made her feel smaller than ever. As she wished for a world—Spira, the moon, Dezolis, _anywhere_ —where she didn't need Yuna or Tidus or Astronaut Mike Dexter to have an adventure, the answer became clear. 

Rikku poked her head back in the house long enough to bellow out, "You know what, Yunie? I _am_ going to the moon. By myself!"


	2. Rikku Versus CAPCOM

Yuna might not have been available to fly to the moon herself, but when it came to cheering on Rikku's great space adventure, no one was willing to do more.

When the day of the launch arrived, Yuna was the first person waiting on the beach of Besaid to see off her best friend and cousin on her historic trip. Since Rin and Shinra had embarked with earnest on their space program, the beaches of Besaid Island had been transformed into a hub of scientific activity, with all manner of onlookers, engineers, and test pilots shouting out directions and encouragement. Yuna staked out a position at the head of the beach to avoid the hubbub. 

And then the woman of the hour came down the trail, dragging a rollerboard suitcase labeled _MOON STUFF_. "Morning, Yunie! OK, I got everything ready for you for while I'm gone. Taxes are finished, your calendar for the next two weeks is posted on my desk, I took your samurai armor to the cleaner, and—" 

She was cut off by Yuna embracing her. "You're going to do great, but no matter what happens, I'm so proud of you. It's like the saying goes, 'If you always shoot for the moon, even if you don't make it, you'll land among the stars.'" 

Rikku sighed. Oh, Yunie. "Yunie, the moon is a lot closer than the stars are, see, 'cause the Moon orbits..." 

"I _am_ going to miss you while you're on the moon." 

Rikku finally returned the embrace while continuing, "...stars aren't even _in_ our solar system..." 

When they stepped apart, Yuna clapped a hand on her cousin's shoulder. "But this is your time to shine." 

"...and even the nearest star is over 4 light years awa—oh, never mind." 

Rikku moved through the crowd, doing her best to find everyone she needed to say a goodbye to: her family, Paine, Lulu and Wakka and Vidina, her pet monkey. The throng of well-wishers convinced her that volunteering for this dangerous mission was the right call. This was going to make her into some important, someone who had _fans_ she got to hear from: "Rikku, good luck with your missi— oh my gosh, it's LADY YUNA! Lady Yuna's here!" 

A colossal splash of water from the ocean heralded a whale rising to the surface. "YUNA! RIKKU!" the whale exclaimed. "Man, I haven't seen you two in _ages_! It's me, your ol' pal Bismarck!" 

_Oh, no_. The last time Rikku had seen the great sea Aeon, he'd been moping around because nobody thought he was as scary as Leviathan. "Uh, hi, Bismarck. You're looking real terrifying today. Honest." 

"Am I?" He beamed. "I'm given up trying to scare people, actually. My new thing is a _magic trick_ that Shiva taught me. Want to see it?" 

Rikku would have been hard pressed to think of things that were lamer than Bismarck trying to scare people, but he'd somehow managed to achieve it. 

"Bismarck, look, I'm really sorry to have to tell you this, but the reason we're all here is that Rikku is going to the moon," Yuna said, as diplomatic as always. "Now's not really a good time for a magic show." Yuna was actually pretty sure that "never" was a good time for a magic show, but she figured she'd have to humor him eventually. 

Bismarck sighed. "C'mon, what's cooler, going to the moon or a _magic trick_?" 

"Going to the moon," said everyone. 

Rikku thought she heard Bismarck sniffling as he slinked off back to the sea. 

Well, this was it. There wasn't a single thing left she had to do to get ready. In less than an hour, she'd be in the rocket, weightless and on her way to the moon. 

Rikku ascended the scaffolding that would lead her into the rocket. Rin stood waiting at the top of the ladder, a huge smile on his face. It was fortuitous that Rikku was ready and willing to cash the checks that his mouth wrote. "Well, Rikku, thanks for letting us send you to the moon." Then he turned to his lead engineer. "We _can_ get you to the moon, right?" 

Shinra shrugged. "I'm just a kid." 

Rikku struck a pose with a confident hand on her hip. "Don't worry. I have all the intelligence, agility, and crushing insecurities of two lesser astronauts." 

"Yeah, I just worry you'll get lonely up there all by yourself." 

Rikku dismissed his concerns with a grunt. She was lonely enough down here! 

"Anyway, I'll be taking on the title of Capsule Commander—CAPCOM—for this mission, and you'll be corresponding directly with me," Shinra said. "I'll extend you the honor of naming the rocket so that, in case of failure, we can't be held responsible." 

"How about the _Invincible_?" Rikku suggested. Always good to start off on an optimistic note, right? 

"Already taken." 

" _Enterprise_? _Falcon_?" 

"Both taken." 

She tried to think of a name that no one in their right mind would ever use for a vehicle. " _Continental Circus_?" 

"Taken." 

"Are you serious?" She looked down at her glove weapon and thought about all the time she'd spent chasing Cactuars for the sigil to power it up. "Wait, how about _Mercury_?" 

"Done." 

Rad. She set off across the bridge, basking in the cheers and applause of the crowd on the beach below. Having the attention of an entire crowd was slightly unnerving, as if she had become some mythic figure rather than just Rikku herself. But this was _space_ , territory tread only by the heroes of legend and Lance Bass. What could better represent the possibility of a different, better tomorrow? A few years ago, the old Spira would have been shaking its collective head in disapproval at a mere earthbound hovercraft. Now, the whole nation would be watching as a _rocket_ and an Al Bhed girl carried its flag into space (and planted it in someone else's backyard). If there were any possibility of overcoming their struggles, of becoming who they truly wanted to be, it was out there among the stars and galaxies, and it was going to be Rikku who showed 'em all how it was done. 

"RIKKU!" Rin called just before she climbed into the rocket. "Weren't you supposed to bring a space suit or something?" 

"It's right here, dummy." Rikku reached down to her belt and swiped her fingers across her Garment Grid. She disappeared into a column of blue light as her Thief daggers disappeared and were replaced with her Astronaut space suit. She triumphantly pointed her fingers towards the sky and declared to the assembled crowd, "Space is awesome!!" 

And then, after one final glance back at Spira, she marched into the rocket. 

To the stars! 

*** * ***

Rikku hadn't even finished buckling herself into the _Mercury_ before her father called. "C'mon, Rikku," her pops said. "You _sure_ you want to do something this dangerous? There's still time to back out." 

"Danger's my middle name; you should know that," Rikku said. "Well, it would be if I had a middle name. I don't even have a last name. But, Pops, c'mon, this is a matter of national security. Imagine if the cactuars get to the moon before we do. They could have a giant cannon shooting 1,000 needles down at us from space." 

"I know, but you're still my little girl! All I'm saying is, you don't have to be astronaut. There are plenty of other jobs that would be good for you: Backup dancer. Teacher's aide. Surgeon's receptionist. Patent attorney's day planner. Police sniper's close personal friend." 

"I'm not gonna be someone's underling forever, Pops!" In a fury, she switched the radio completely off. What was his problem? Didn't he aspire for his daughter to be something greater? Nobody ever told _Yunie_ to be a surgeon's receptionist. 

But her defiance melted as soon as Shinra started the launch countdown. "T minus 20 minutes." Panic exploded out of her heart. Oh, geez. This was really happening. She was going to fly into space, sealed into a rocket high above Spira, and there was going to be no one to talk to her, no one to help her with anything. Maybe she _would_ be better off as a day planner. She flipped the radio back on. "Wait! Stop, stop!" 

"T minus 19," Shinra said. 

She'd never been on an adventure _alone_ before. They should should have sent Yunie, they should have sent someone who really knew what she was doing. "Stop! This was a terrible idea!" 

Then a voice came up from the Lunar Lander. "Don't worry, love, I'm here!" 

Oh, no. It _couldn't_ be. Rikku unbuckled herself and climbed down into the bottom of the rocket, where she discovered that it, in fact, _could_ be. Leblanc was sitting there, reading a copy of _Better Homes and Fortresses_ and fanning herself. "I _knew_ you'd follow me in here," she huffed. 

"Follow _you_ in here? This is _my_ moon mission! You're not even wearing a spacesuit! You'll _die_." 

"Don't worry, I already figured out a solution to that. How about you just give me yours?" 

"T minus 15." 

Rikku might have been bummed that Yunie hadn't wanted to go the moon with her, but that didn't mean she'd accept just any ol' person as a substitute friend. Indeed, the idea that Leblanc might now be the suitable traveling companion for her terrified Rikku. She didn't want to think she'd become so desperate that she had no choice but to accept terrible people as her friends. Yeah, yeah, the losers and outcasts were supposed to band together, but what kind of life was it when your friends were the only people you _could_ be with rather than the people you _wanted_ to be with? Had she really become _that_ undesirable? 

"No. No no no. Get out." Rikku grabbed Leblanc's wrist and tried to yank her out of her hiding place. Instead, Leblanc flipped Rikku on the ground, grabbed Rikku's Garment Grid, and made for a run for it. Leblanc, now wearing the spacesuit, seated herself in the Command Module while Rikku flailed about without any of her dresspheres. 

"T minus 10." 

"Help! Somebody! Yunie! Dr. P!" 

Fortunately, the brawn of the operation soon arrived: Paine opened the hatch of the rocket and stepped inside. She grabbed Leblanc and lifted her out of the command chair. "Sorry, Leblanc. That seat's taken." Leblanc struggled, but Paine was clearly stronger, and she hauled Leblanc down and out of the rocket. 

As Paine dragged the still-complaining Leblanc over the doorstop, Rikku swiped her Garment Grid back from Leblanc's hands. She and Paine happened to lock eyes, and for a brief moment Rikku hesitated. Maybe she should have invited Dr. P along instead of agreeing to do this solo. Sure, Paine wasn't much of a conversationalist, and Rikku would probably end the adventure with a Respect Point deficit that rivaled the financials for _John Carter from Mars_. But, Paine really did care; Rikku had understood that long before Yuna or Brother or Shinra or any of the other Gullwings had. 

"Hey, Dr. P, you want to come with? I'm sure we could find another spacesuit and—" 

Paine interrupted her with a shake of her head. "Nah. Haven't finished my taxes." As an experienced Paine-watcher, Rikku understood it immediately as an excuse for the more sentimental reason Paine couldn't bring herself to reveal, something more like _This is your time, Rikku_. (It felt kinda special in a way, being able to decode Paine.) 

Before Paine dropped Leblanc outside and slammed the door shut, she gave Rikku a rare smile. "Go get 'em, tiger." 

"Tiger? _Tiger_!?" Rikku howled through the closed door. "I wanted to be a _monkey_! How many tigers have you heard of that learned sign language?" 

"T minus 30 seconds and counting." 

Eek! Rikku threw her spacesuit back on, scrambled back into her seat, buckled her seatbelt, and was halfway through a triumphant fist-pump when the rocket started to move. "The future is nooooooowh shit." 

"LIFT OFF!" 

*** * ***

Rikku watched from the window, enraptured, as Spira pulled away below her. For thousands of years, the whole of Spiran history—Bevelle, Zanarkand, Sin, Vegnagun, Braska, Yunie, Eternal Calm—had unfolded within the confines of the pale blue pixel that now occupied just a fraction of her vision. And she, before anyone else, had broken free. She was going to the Moon. The freakin' _Moon_! 

But not quite yet. 

It didn't take too long to settle the butterflies in her stomach—stemming from a mix of excitement, weightlessness, and opening her mouth too widely in Macalania Woods—and allow reality to set in. She was stuck in this cramped, mostly featureless room for three days. At least they'd given her plenty of Tang. 

"Rikku to CAPCOM, come in CAPCOM." 

"This is CAPCOM," Shinra answered. 

"How long has it been?" 

"About twelve minutes." 

Darn. This was going to be a long flight. 

She floated over to the treasure chest in the corner. Rin and Shinra had given her one other job as part of her voyage to the moon. Should Rikku encounter anyone residing on the moon—aliens or robots or Galactic Emperor Xenu—she was to deliver a special golden sphere with a message of goodwill from the big blue planet down below. 

She lifted the golden sphere out of the chest to examine it. Baralai, Nooj, and Gippal had designed it as Spira's message to the universe. Stored within were a recording of the Hymn of the Fayth, videos of every major city in Spira and of last year's Blitzball finals, and a message of goodwill. And etched in its stand were elementary mathematics, advanced wizardry, the Continental and Al Bhed alphabets, and drawings depicting the various peoples of Spira: Ronso, Guado, Hypello, and whatever the heck Tobli was. And, then, right in the center, was the legend herself: Spira's leader, idol, and greatest hero. _Of course, Yunie. If there's one thing in Spira that everyone ought to know about, it's you._

"Rikku to CAPCOM, come in CAPCOM." 

"Yes, this is CAPCOM; what is it this time?" Shinra sounded annoyed. 

"How long now?" 

"Fourteen minutes." 

_I wish I'd upgraded to first class,_ Rikku thought. 

*** * ***

By the second day of her spaceflight, Rikku was bored enough that she was literally climbing the walls (which was pretty easy in zero gravity). The single issue of _People en Al Bhed_ she'd brought with her had been read six times over, she'd lost four games of chess to herself, designed and failed to solve an impossible sudoku puzzle, and consumed so much cherry Tang that she was starting to turn into a redhead. 

Outer space was really big, and also really boring. 

She really wanted to talk to someone, but Shinra had told her not to call unless it was an emergency. This is probably why they had wanted to send someone else up with her for company, wasn't it? Well, screw 'em. She was gonna prove she could do this all by her lonesome. Besides, even if she was still with everyone down in Spira, Yuna would probably still be refusing to hang out with her and wasting her time doin' dumb stuff like cooking dinner and having sex with her boyfriend. 

Oh, well. It was all gonna be worth it when she got to walk on the moon and space-jump over craters. 

She started typing out her mission log on the telegraph machine. 

_Dear CAPCPOM: Day two. On my way to the moon in the name of science and progress. It was awesome seeing Spira from space. Everything is dark and space-y outside. Still getting used to being weightless._

That only killed about five minutes, so she decided to write another one. 

_Dear CAPCPOM: Day two and a half. Not on the moon. Still pretty space-y outside._

And another. 

_Dear CAPCPOM: mission log haiku / Moon is still a day away / bored bored bored bored bored_

_Dear CAPCPOM: Oh! I have slipped the surly bounds of Spira / Space is totes amazeballs._

_Dear CAPCPOM: BWAH BWAH BWAH i am now BIZARRO RIKKU i love being alone in a rocket_

She was starting on her sixth mission log, written in blank verse, when Shinra called in a grumpy mood. "First off, it's spelled CAPCOM. Second, sending me mission logs every few minutes is almost as bad as calling me." 

"C'mon, I'm BORED! Can't we play a game?" 

He sighed. Entertaining the astronaut definitely hadn't been in the job description. "Fine. I'm thinking of a famous person; can you guess who it is?" 

"Animal, vegetable, or mineral?" 

"I just said it was a _person_." 

"The person could be a golem." 

The _Mercury_ sat in silence for several minutes as Shinra and Rikku both waited for the other to speak. 

" _Is_ the person a golem?" Rikku finally asked. 

"It's not a golem. It's a famous person." 

"Is it Yunie?" 

"Yeah." 

"Too damn easy." 

*** * ***

Three days after the _Mercury_ blasted off, it reached its destination: orbit around the moon. Rikku looked out the window at the dark gray sphere below her. The moon looked bigger—closer—than she'd ever seen it before; she could easily make the outlines of individual craters and mountains. 

She thought of the people down in Spira: Shinra and Rin at Mission Command, Yuna and Tidus at whatever stupid museum they were going to, Leblanc fuming in her "chambre." Were they looking up at the moon and thinking of her? Of course, they'd only see the _moon_ , illuminating the whole world, and her _Mercury_ would have been insignificant, invisible. 

But, still, she imagined this might be the biggest event in spherevision history since _The Chevy Chase Show_. People walking on the moon! And it was an Al Bhed woman in an Al Bhed rocket! Spira sure was changing. She was already thinking of all the ways they could leverage this to reach the kiddies: Rikku the Explorer and her faithful monkey sidekick, goin' adventuring and teachin' kids how to speak Al Bhed. 

She set the _Mercury_ to autopilot and floated into the Lunar Lander that she'd be using to descend to the moon. It was a little cramped, but oh well; it wasn't like she was going to be knockin' boots in here. "Rikku to CAPCOM," she reported, trying to sound professional but utterly failing to contain her glee. " _I'm heading to the moon_." 

The Lunar Lander pulled away from the _Mercury_ and began its descent. 

Fortunately, Rikku was no stranger to piloting dangerous aircraft. She knew the rules, and so did Shinra: Never give up on the throttle, never let this thing down on a mountain, never run around the planet too many times and stall in a desert. 

Rikku brought the Lunar Lander gently down on a flat stretch of the lunar surface. A ten-point landing. Back at Mission Command, a cheer went up. 

But piloting dangerous experimental machina was what Rikkus did best. The part that worried her came afterwards. As soon as she stepped out of the Lunar Lander, she was going to have give some big speech that the whole world would watch. She wasn't sure she was ready to say something up to the occasion. 

Well, she could organize all the supplies in her backpack first. She stocked all the potions and phoenix down at the top, the packets of flan next, and the key items at the bottom. 

Nope. Still not feeling ready. 

She took a deep breath and clutched her fingertips to her eyelids. _C'mon. Get it together, Rikku_. Well, she could sweep the Lunar Lander first. Sweeping the Lunar Lander was always important, right? And maybe she should floss her teeth while she was it. And file her nails. And balance her checkbook. 

"Rikku, this is CAPCOM. We're ready for your big moment." 

But _she_ wasn't. At this point, Rikku was practically hyperventilating. What the heck could you say when you'd fulfilled a centuries' old dream of humanity? There was only person who could tell her. "I need to talk to Yunie." 

Soon the Lady High Summoner herself was on the line. "It'll be fine," Yuna reassured her. "You'll do great." 

"No! Yunie, I'm not like you. I can't just get up and talk in front of a bajillion people." 

"What you are talking about? You're friends with everyone! How can you not want to talk to them?" 

"I like talking to people when they're just a _person_ , but not when they're _people_." 

But there was no getting around it, and she _did_ really want to go jump around the moon. With the sphere recorder sending a live feed back to Spira, she jumped out of the door of the Lunar Lander and felt herself glide through the low-gravity environment before she finally landed among the moon rocks. _Moon rocks_! She was standing on moon rocks! She scooped up a little pile of them and stuffed them in her pocket with glee. 

She unfurled her Spiran flag and planted it in the gray dust of this new world. First woman on the moon: Rikku. "That's one giant step for Spira," she declared, "and one... one... one even _giant_ -er step for... one even _giant_ -er step for ... someone? Honestly, I forget where I was going with that. Can I start over?" 

"We're live," Shinra said. 

Rikku started over anyway. "That's one—no, that wasn't good. That's one giant... wait, hold on. One more try." 

She thought of all the people—in Besaid and Kilika and Luca and Bevelle—watching her choke. Al Bhed and Ronso and Guado all gathered around the telesphere to see her unable to finish a sentence. Even the Cactuars would be watching in the Cactuar Nation and laughing at this. Someone was probably recording this for posterity. Sweat trickled down the inside of her space helmet. She wanted to curl up in a crater somewhere and die. 

"That's one giant enemy crab for Amanda, one smelly step for— Oh, no. I CAN'T DO THIS!" She kicked over the sphere recorder and ran away.


	3. Moon Safari

Rikku was in such a panic that she couldn't stop running, far away from the Lunar Lander, right past every random battle and cache of potions, until the exhaustion in her legs outweighed the embarrassment of flubbing her speech. This was why they were supposed to have tape delay.

She sat down on the rim of a crater, panting, to catch her breath. Unlike on Spira, the landscape was utterly lifeless and motionless, a still-life of rocks and craters that probably looked just the same as it had a hundred years ago. She raised her eyes to the dark abyss overhead and watched Spira shine above her. It was funny that the place she'd lived her whole life could now be just a semicircle in the sky, her whole past literally a world away. 

It always worked this way when you were Al Bhed. You had one foot in Spira, but you never really _belonged_ to it, not like everyone else did. Oh, you could do quite well for a while. You could put on a great show of it, and for a time you could get as many smiles and compliments and endorsement deals as anyone in Yevon, and you'd convince yourself that things would be different for _you_. But when you slipped up once—and, make no mistake, you would eventually—then you were done for. Then their knives would come out and they'd remind you of who you _really_ were, that you weren't one of them and never would be. 

Suddenly, it was Spira—Yunie being a poopyhead, making a fool of yourself on the national news, "Al Bhed Need Not Apply"—that seemed hostile territory. The _Moon_ —quiet, peaceful, and full of unknown lands to explore—was the place to be. 

When she returned to the Lunar Lander with a new feeling of determination, Mission Command was still calling over the radio and trying to talk her down. "Rikku? Rikku?" Yuna was saying desperately. "I know you humiliated yourself on live spherevision in front of the entire planet, but that happens to everyone sometimes. Let's talk." 

"I'm not coming back to Spira, Yunie!" she snapped and turned off the radio. 

Who wanted to be second fiddle on Spira when she could be lead violin on the Moon? Heck, she was the entire _orchestra_ up here. Why not stay? She had enough Tang to last her, like, five weeks. And after that ... maybe she could grow some moon corn or something. She could be having adventures here until the day she died. 

Rikku hauled the moon buggy out of the Lunar Lander and set off to explore this strange new monochromatic world. On the right side of her stood a high plateau that she'd have to find a way up to later. On the left, craters and rocks dotted the landscape. The occasional cave entrance in the side of the plateau suggested exciting adventures to be had. Rikku started a map on a scrap of paper, jotting down places she wanted to explore later. 

As she continued, she saw an enormous blue tower standing atop the plateau and shimmering like crystal in the sunlight. Definitely man-made. Or _something_ -made, at least. She made a note of it on her map; she'd certainly have to check out that place later, too. 

The buggy rolled on, past more craters and caverns, around another high plateau just like the last one, and past a _second_ humongous crystal tower. Wow. Someone had really gone to town on this place. 

Her map continued onto the back side of the sheet of paper as she passed more caverns and then still another crystal tower. Wow, this place was _huge_. She was going to have so many amazing adventures; she could be exploring this place for the rest of her life. No reason to go back to Spira, ever. 

A fourth crystal tower rolled by on her r— 

Oh. 

"Rikku, you _dummy_." She hurried to scratch out all of the duplicate paths and landmarks she'd drawn after she'd circled the moon the first time. OK, so maybe this place wasn't _quite_ as big as she thought. 

Still, time to get to exploring! There was so much to see here and, at long last, no one to hold her back. 

She pulled up to the first cave, jumped off her buggy, and stepped inside. The cave led into the vast lunar subterrane, opening into a cavernous room that would have been big enough to hold a shoopuf. She pulled out the Blitzball she'd brought with her and gave it a solid kick. In the low gravity, it spiraled impossibly high into the air. _Beat_ that _, Big T,_ she thought. This was awesome. Low gravity made everyone feel like a superhero with double the hit points. 

Rikku took a flying jump across the room, watching the ground plummet away beneath her. Even Kimahri couldn't jump _this_ high! She continued through the cave in great, bounding leaps, feeling separated now from everything, even the ground and gravity. She was floating, adrift, unattached—as she felt so often now in life—with all the good and the bad that entailed. 

It was a magical moment, at least of a sort. But the trouble with magical moments these days was that she couldn't help but wonder if they were merely inferior copies of an even more magical moment where her friends were up here moonwalking alongside her. Was her current state of solitude the only way possible way her life could have gone? Or was there some parallel universe where things were different, where Y-R-P were no longer M-I-A? 

What she'd give to be back in that era for just one more day, to have just one more dusty cave or ancient ruin's worth of memories with the old gang. She imagined how it would play out. "Wow, you guys, it's like I'm flying!" Then, adopting her grumpiest voice, "Jumping around is for chumps. I'm Paine, and I have a bug up my butt." Then: "Thanks for inviting us, Rikku, this is way more fun than the Blitzball Hall of Fame." 

It had seemed, then, like the world was a limitless place. She had thought their adventures were just the prelude to an even greater story, that her life was only starting to begin and that true happiness was waiting just around the corner to be discovered. But now she realized that feeling of unlimited, wonderful potential _was_ true happiness; she'd discovered bliss and then lost it before she even realized she had it. Now that she understood that, now that she'd seen behind the curtain, she wondered if she could ever get the feeling back. It might be as futile as trying to fool yourself into being impressed by a magic trick after you knew how it worked. 

_Aw, dangit, self, do NOT start crying_. It was going to make it impossible to see out of this darn spacesuit. 

It was a welcome distraction when she stumbled across a silver-blue door embedded in the wall of the cave. Aha! Someone had _built_ something down here. She tipped the door open carefully. After all, who knew kind of outlandish beasts lived on the moon? Monsters? Egg-laying mammals? _Horses_? 

Beyond the door, a blue-skinned man—a moon man?—was typing away at a computer. Around him, a giant bank of monitors flashed various glimpses of Spira: the Moonflow, Mt. Gagazet, the Little Bikanel district of Luca, even other caves on the moon. Several clumsily-drawn maps of Spira, with pins stuck in various locations, hung on the cave walls. 

She was kinda glad to see another person here she could talk to, and not just because of the golden sphere she was supposed to deliver. "Um ... hello?" 

Without looking up from his monitors, he extended one bony finger to point at her. "That's a 1. I'm watching." 

"Come again?" 

"Don't think you can walk through that door as many times as you want. I'm watching." He typed something into the 103-megabyte Excel file in front of him, muttering to himself, "Row 19,873, column 8,410 ... basement door ... 1." 

Rikku remained utterly baffled, but she felt she was usually pretty good at making friends. "Hi, I'm Rikku," she said, extending a hand. "I just came here from Spira, but I'm probably gonna be sticking around a while. What's your name?" 

Too engrossed in the computer, he didn't shake her hand or even turn to look at her. "Zemus," he announced. "I will be soon coming with the Lunarians to live on Spira. However, I must make the planet acceptable for us to live on. There are too many nosy Earthlings walking through the same door over and over. Would _you_ like it if someone kept walking through the same door over and over?" 

"...I don't think I'd really care." 

"It is _intolerable_." Like most crackpots, Zemus was all too happy to expound on his ideas to anyone who wanted to listen, and many who didn't. "Think of all the unnecessary footsteps, the superfluous shoeprints. Does anyone _really_ need to check the prices at five different item shops? Everything always costs the same anyway! I must destroy all of these ignorant, wasteful fools!" 

To demonstrate, he pointed at one of his video monitors, where Leblanc was walking into a bar in the city of Luca. "This door looks to have been manufactured approximately 30 years ago with a height 4 centimeters over the mathematical average. Currently, Z.I.N. 65530127 is stepping through it for the third time. I assign each Earthling a unique Zemus Identification Number to track them. The methods I use to calculate a Z.I.N. are confidential, and I cannot disclose them to you." 

"Wouldn't dream of asking." 

Somehow it seemed impossibly sad to Rikku that this guy was devoting his life to getting angry about people walking through doors. Think of all the _friends_ he could be making instead! All of the caves he could be exploring! 

Then she remembered she'd come up here because Yuna and Tidus wouldn't hang out with _her_. Maybe they weren't so different; maybe they could be friends. Two lonely souls, an Earthling and a subterranean homestuck alien, adrift in a world that seemed to have forgotten about them. She liked that idea. "Cool. Want some help? We can hang out and, uh, count some doors." Without waiting for a response, she sat down on the cave floor next to him. 

"We need to watch stairs, too," Zemus proclaimed. "Sometimes people keep going up and down stairs. They might be plotting against me." He pointed to one of his screens. "See? That Ronso has walked up the stairs to the Bevelle Highbridge 47 times." 

"And that's too many, huh?" 

"No, 47 times is okay. I don't have a problem with 47 times. I only have a problem with 64 times. I HATE 64 TIMES!" He pounded his bony fist against the desk in ineffectual rage. "YOU BETTER WATCH YOURSELF, MISTER RONSO!" 

"'kay." Rikku was getting a little alarmed, but she was still determined to make friends with this guy. 

Then, Zemus suddenly erupted. "THERE! RIGHT THERE!" he screamed, pointing at a video feed of someone walking out of the item shop in Guadosalam. "THAT'S 64 TIMES!" His fists pounded against the keyboard faster and faster until they accelerated into a furious drumbeat. "Your _frivolity_ is _unacceptable_! You shall be consumed with the flames of destruction! The wrath of a thousand ages shall fall upon you!" He was hyperventilating now, his words coming out between angry huffs and puffs. 

"Whoa, whoa, calm down!" Rikku tried to restrain Zemus by his pulling on his sleeve. "It's just a door. I'm sure he didn't mean anything by walking through it. I mean, who the hell cares?" Rikku was never big into revenge. Growing up Al Bhed, facing more injustices that she could count, she _couldn't_ be. The last thing she wanted was to do anything that might _hurt_ Yunie or Tidus or anyone on Spira; she just wanted to be tough enough not to need them. 

But Zemus was far past being reasoned with. "Why? Why do they keep doing this to me?" He clenched his fists and threw back his head in rage, and a swirling blue spirit emerged from his body. "I AM ZEROMUS, THE PRODUCT OF ZEMUS'S HATRED! DO YOU THINK YOU CAN TAUNT ME LIKE THIS, YOU NOSY EARTHLINGS? THE 8² CURSE OF EXTINCTION IS UPON YOU! I WILL END YOUR SENSELESS DOOR-ENTERING!" 

Rikku backed away as quickly as she could without attracting his attention. So much for being friends with this guy. He was a straight-up moon monster! Thank goodness she hadn't handed over her golden sphere yet; he'd probably use it to track down people who had the wrong kind of window frame. "I'll just, uh, be leaving now," she said quietly, and edged back out the door. 

"YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH THAT DOOR TWO TIMES NOW!" Zeromus yelled after her. "Don't think I'm not watching!" 

*** * ***

After leaving Zeromus's, she spent several days by herself, cruising the moon in her buggy, exploring caves, and fighting off flans. 

"Poopie," she cursed. "They told me there would be water on the moon and instead there's just more random battles." 

But after embarrassing herself so badly in her big speech, she actually appreciated the solitude. For the first time in her life, she was by _herself_ — not with Pops or Brother or the salvage crew, not with Paine and the Gullwings, not with Yuna and Tidus. At first, it seemed scary that there wasn't anyone around to talk with her, no one to constantly remind her that she existed. Being alone sucked, because it meant you only had your thoughts to keep your company, and those were the worst kind of neighbor around. But just like she'd warm up to any other person, she gradually became comfortable with herself as company. It wasn't so bad by being yourself, she decided. You had all the time in the world up here to do sudoku puzzles, and you never had to schedule around anyone's trip to the Blitzball Hall of Fame. 

The only other human contact she encountered was when she ventured all the way to the dark side of the moon. Just beyond the rim of an inconspicuous crater, she spotted the steel frame of a partially constructed spaceship. A variety of gray, bird-like alien creatures were hard at work finishing it, carrying girders from a pile and lifting them into place. A large dragon stood in the midst of it all, directing workflow with his claws and helping to lift the heaviest pieces of metal. 

Remembering her mission to deliver the golden sphere, she piloted her buggy closer. "Who's in charge around here?" 

A human man with an eyepatch, sprawled out on a lawn chair with a packet of rum-flavored Tang, nodded his head. "Arrr, I be Bikke the Space Pirate, Cap'n of this lazy, good-fer-nuthin' crew," he roared. "If it weren't fer me, we'd never get anything done." 

She didn't expect to see _people_ up her. Before she handed over her golden sphere, she wanted to make sure it was going to a bona fide alien. "Are you from Spira? What are you doing on the moon?" 

Bikke tore open another packet of rum while several more girders fell into place behind him. "Hard at work buildin' me new spaceship." 

"Uh, it doesn't look _you're_ building the spaceship." 

Bikke craned his neck to get a look at her with his one good eye. "Haven't seen you around before, Earthlubber. You come here to become one of me buccaneers?" 

Rikku, however, had had enough of being someone else's "buccaneer." This was _her_ adventure, darnit. "No thanks, I—" 

Bikke held up a finger to pause her and then turned to yell at one of the Space Pirates who had gotten up from its desk. "HEY! Ye better not be lollygagging about before ye've finished me taxes. Get back to work!" Problem solved, he turned back to Rikku. "You sure about that? We be offerin' generous vacation time and comfortable working conditions." 

"Yeah, right." 

Bikke stretched and leaned back in his chair as if to prepare for a nap, and Rikku reconsidered handing over the golden sphere. Somehow she doubted this guy could even be bothered to watch it. And after all the work that Rin and the others had put into making it, that didn't seem fair. 

She climbed back into her buggy. 

"Well, if ye change yer mind, ye know where to find me." Bikke waved one hands towards the spaceship while the other scratched his belly. 

"Sure, uh-huh," Rikku said, mostly out of politeness. "Does this place have a name?" 

Bikke's startled expression suggested he'd never bothered to consider the question before. He stared at the spaceship for a fleeting moment and then shrugged. " _SHIP_." 

*** * ***

Rikku was getting tired, and the Lunar Lander way on the other side of the moon was too long a drive back from Bikke's _SHIP_. She looked for a comfortable place to pitch a tent. 

She soon found the answering staring her in the face—and she staring _it_ in the face. Partially hidden among several other rocks was a large rectangular rock with a giant human face carved into it. Two questions immediately came to mind: _Who made this? And where can I get one?_ Imagine a huge Rikku face in her front yard. How sweet would that be? If someone was bugging her, she'd just tell them, "Talk to the face." 

The face-shaped rock was smooth and quite sturdy, so she propped her tent up against it. It was nice to feel like someone was—quite literally—looking over her again. "G'night," she said, for the first time in several days. 

She woke the next morning to a new addition to the landscape: A small silver rocket had landed in the dust of the moon. She rushed over to it. Was this from Spira? 

Attached to the rocket was a note written in her Pops's handwriting: "Rikku, it's your family. Please call home. We're worried about you." 

For a brief moment she felt her resolve waver. They were so worried about her that they'd sent another rocket up here to try to contact her. Didn't she owe them a call? But then she dropped the note back into the moondust. Whatever. She'd already resolved to spend another few days being mad at them. If she gave in the first time that her family asked her to do anything, she'd never get anywhere. 

Besides, look at her, livin' it up on the moon, roving with her rover and Tanging with her Tang. 

She checked the map she'd drawn earlier. One more cave left to explore, and then on to the towers. She hated to think that soon she would have seen everything there was to see here. Then the Moon would be just another familiar place, devoid of wonder and opportunity, and— _No, don't even think about that._

Ferocious Behemoths patrolled the last cave. _Yee-ikes_. She'd taken down plenty of these before, but always with Yuna or Tidus or Paine helping out. Well, nobody was going to help her up here, so it was all up to the World's Best Sidekick. 

Fortunately, Rikku _never_ traveled without a change of clothes—or twelve. "Alchemist power, make up!" She changed into her heavily-armored Alchemist getup and circle-strafed the Behemoth, blasting away at it with her heavy cannon until it went down. 

Whew. Not bad. She felt awfully badass, vanquishing monsters by herself. "Digging sand builds character," Pops used to tell her. She'd been pretty sure _that_ was just an excuse to make her clean up after a sandstorm, but fending for herself was definitely toughening her up a lot more than if she were just the support character casting Haste on Yuna and Paine. _Ad astra per aspera_ , the saying went. To the stars through hardships. 

At the end of the cave, Rikku came to a peculiar sort of stone cottage. It was built into the side of the cave, but it had a wooden door and open windows. She peered through the open window. Another dragon sat inside, hunched over a stone altar with some papers. 

She pounded on the door. The dragon craned its head up, clearly looked directly at her, and then turned back to its altar. What the heck? She pounded on the door some more, eventually kicking it and beating it with both fists in her frustration. "I'M A GOODWILL AMBASSADOR, STUPID FACE! OPEN THE DOOR! ARRGH, I HATE YOU!" 

At last, the dragon thrust his head out the window. "Do not," he declared, "meddle in the affairs of dragons." 

This was exactly the wrong thing to say to Rikku. She danced two fingers along the windowsill. "Uh-oh, look out, here I come, starting to meddle again." Her fingers inched closer and closer inside. "Am I meddling now? Huh? Is this meddling yet?" 

"ENOUGH!" Bahamut roared, loud enough to actually make Rikku jump. The angry dragon stormed out of his room and shoved a tax form in her face. "Do you know how difficult it is to enter the lesser of lines 23 and 25 with your infernal racket going on?" 

Even though he was yelling at her, he seemed to Rikku like a good guy. He hadn't been doing anything creepy or mean in his office, just his taxes. And, Rikku liked to think of herself as a pretty good judge of character; she could just _tell_ when somebody was going to be important to her. Like how she'd known to take a chance on Paine despite Paine's best attempts to pose as the strong, silent type rather than the big ol' softie she was on the inside. 

And so Rikku fished the golden sphere out of her pack and offered it to him. "All right, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my message of goodwill from the people of Spira, so trade me maybe?" 

One claw took the sphere from her hand and held it up for inspection. "What is this?" 

"I'm from Spira, down on the big planet. This sphere will tell you all about our culture and Lady Yuna. She's my cousin. Do you have anything in, like, moon speak that I could take back with me?" 

Bahamut retreated into his house with a "Hmm" and came back with a stone tablet. "Here. This recounts the story of the space dragons." 

"Whoa, really? You're giving this to me?" Rikku had gotten used to feeling like she wasn't important enough to merit special gifts. Then she narrowed her eyes. "You're not pulling a fast one on me, are you? This isn't just some piece of junk you're passing off as an ancient artifact?" 

"I can deduct it as a charitable contribution." 

Rikku scanned the tablet. Lots of writing in a language that was neither Al Bhed nor Continental, accompanied by etchings of space dragons like Bahamut and that guy from the Space Pirates. Seemed legit. "Oh, yeah. I recognize this guy from earlier." 

For the first time, Bahamut showed genuine interest in her. "Which guy?" 

Rikku held up the tablet and pointed with her thumb to the dragon she'd seen earlier. "This guy, from the Space Pirates 'round the other side of the moon. 

" _Space Pirates_?" With sudden alarm, Bahamut craned his head to see which dragon Rikku had been pointing at. "Great Scott! _Ridley_! So we meet again." 

"You know him, huh?" 

Bahamut clasped his claws to his head. "Space Pirates, right here on this moon," he groaned. "This is terrible. We have to assume that whoever's leading them is willing to do anything." 

Rikku shrugged. "He seemed more willing to do nothing." 

"No, listen. Whenever there are Space Pirates, no matter what anyone else claims, there are always, _always_ Metroids. And if a single Metroid gets loose in this or any other world, the galaxy is in grave danger. They must be exterminated immediately." 

Rikku's shoulders fell. So much for her moon vacation. Was she going to have to go back to Spira and get Yunie and Dr. P and everyone up here to save the day? "You're a big ol' dragon. Why don't you just breathe fire on them?" 

"There's no oxygen on the moon." 

Damn that scientific accuracy. 

Rikku frowned. "Well, I'm just a thief. I'm mostly good at stealing items and scheduling Yunie's appointments." 

"I know. It would take a Space Ninja to stand up to the Space Pirates." 

Too bad. Rikku gathered up the tablet and her other loot, turned away, and was about to take her leave when she reconsidered. You know what? _She_ could do this. She'd already flown to the moon all by herself, mapped out the whole place, and fought a Behemoth. Who could say she wasn't a bad enough gal to save the galaxy? She turned back to Bahamut. "I'll do it. I'll be the Space Ninja. I wanna be the gal." 

Bahamut extended his long reptilian neck and swayed his head this way and that, sizing up Rikku and her potential. Eventually, he said, "If you want to become a Space Ninja, you need a rat tail." 

"Oh, no, you've got the wrong woman; that's Yuna." 

"To change classes to a Space Ninja, one must demonstrate bravery, cunning, self-awareness, and a willingness to stop banging on my door when I'm trying to do my taxes. You must go to to the Towers of Trials and retrieve the rat trail therein to prove your courage." 

"What? I have to go through a trial just to find a freakin' _rat tail_? Why don't I just go find any ol' rat and cut its tail off?" 

_NOTE: The creators of Rikku Goes To The Moon do not endorse animal cruelty._

"There aren't any rats in space." Bahamut waved her out of the cave. "Now run along." 

*** * ***

Rikku was still grumbling as she drove her moon buggy along the route Bahamut had given her. But her annoyance over this silly fetch quest quickly faded when she saw the crystal blue towers rising up ahead of her and began to think about what might be inside. This was gonna be _awesome_. Mysterious buildings! Adventure! Severed animal parts! 

The walls inside the tower were silver and shiny, just like the moon. A couple of large red humanoid machina, several times Rikku's size, patrolled the halls. 

Well, they'd picked the wrong kind of guard to try to keep out _her_. She shimmied up the back of one red giant, opened a panel on the back of its neck, and flipped off the power switch before her grip gauge was even halfway depleted. The second went down even faster. 

Not a very difficult trial so far. She was feelin' pretty about good herself. Rikku, Master Thief. 

She continued down the hall. At the end, she came to a large, circular room almost like an arena. A staircase in the middle of the room led up to an altar-like structure. There reclined an elderly man wearing a blue robe. His long, white beard flowed down his body, reaching almost to his feet. 

"Greetings, Earthling," he said. "I am FuSoYa of the Lunarians." 

Rikku was agog. "Are you wearing a _Snuggie_?" 

"Bahamut told me that he was sending someone over for another one of his 'trials,' so I've been expecting you." 

"You _are_. You are totally wearing a Snuggie." 

FuSoYa rose from his chair and descended to the floor where Rikku was standing. "Now, you must understand that the Rat Tail denotes a valorous adventurer who has overcome her weaknesses. If you wish to prove your worthiness to Bahamut, you must thrice defeat me as I assume the forms and powers of three of your greatest fears." 

Rikku considered herself a pretty valorous adventurer, at least Level 70 or so. She folded her arms. "Bring it on, Mr. FoSaYu." 

FuSoYa's body became hazy and shifted into the hissing, buzzing, bug-like form of Yu Yevon, Spira's greatest enemy. 

Rikku plunged one dagger right into its head. "C'mon, I ain't scared of _you_ ; we had Reraise that whole battle. You gotta try something harder, Mr. FaSoLa." 

FuSoYa shape-shifted again, now transforming into a shimmering, crackling thunder elemental. No problem. She'd camped out on the Thunder Plains; she was good with lightning now; she could take this. All she needed was one well-placed Water spell, and... Wait, no. There was no water on the moon. 

"Eat Tang, sucker!" she cried. "I mean, drink. Drink Tang, sucker!" She hurled a packet of blueberry Tang—her least favorite flavor and one she was happy to part with—into the core of the elemental. Its spinning parts slowed to a crawl, and it fell to the ground. Blue Tang wasn't nothin' to fuck wit'. 

One more round. Rikku cracked her knuckles and waited for Mr. FooBarBaz's final transformation. His body became hazy and he transformed again—into the one creature that Rikku knew better than anything. 

"What?" Rikku howled. "You can't be Yuna, Mr. PoTaTo; that's cheating! It's like saying your weakness is working too hard! Yunie's superpower is being good at _everything_! She's like the Konami Code of people! You can't do that." 

"We'll each give one persuasive speech, to be no more than five minutes, and no fewer than—" 

"No! No no no. _Noooo_ way. If you're going to be Yunie, we at least gotta make this a shooting contest." 

Silently, Fu-So-Yuna whipped out one pistol and shot a single candle off the chandelier. 

Eeek. Rikku wondered if there was any alternative contest she could challenge this Yuna clone to. How about a sing-off? No, Yunie was the best at that too. Magic? That was silly; Yuna _started_ her adventuring career as a white mage. Thievery? She knew Yunie had been practicing her thief skills recently, but maybe there was still a chance to win at— 

"Is this your wallet?" Fu-So-Yuna said, holding up what was indeed Rikku's wallet. Before she had even realized it was gone, he'd swiped it from her and was rifling through it. "Sweet, a My Panera rewards card." 

This was impossible. There wasn't anything that she was better than Yunie at. In despair, Rikku covered her face in the gloves of her space suit. Wait. Space suit. That was it! "Hey, Yuna, what's closer to Spira, the stars or the moon?" 

Shifting the topic, Fu-So-Yuna began, "We'll hold a 3-round _Funky Fantasy_ dancing competition." 

"Hey, you didn't answer my question. What's closer, the stars or the moon?" She grabbed her adversary by the collar. "Huh? Tell me!" 

"...or a _Mythril Chef_ cooking competition..." 

She tightened her grip on his collar. "Oh yeah, and how do you say 'I can eat glass; it doesn't hurt me' in Al Bhed?" 

"Mercy!" croaked Fu-So-Yuna. 

But Rikku was just getting started. "What's 2 to the sixteenth power? Name three senior vice presidents of the Machine Faction. The resistance of a wire depends on which of the following? A, length; B, magic defense; C, material; D, Gamerscore. Let's go into a bar and see who makes five new friends the fastest." 

"MERCY! MERCY!" FuSoYa turned back into himself and appeared to melt into a little puddle on the ground. 

It took Rikku a moment to calm down from the adrenaline rush. She peered down at the puddle of melted Lunarian. "Uh, you OK, Mr. ToFuYa?" 

"I'll be fine once we hit freezing temperature." 

"'kay." 

She proceeded into the chamber beyond, feeling proud of herself. She was pretty fearsome even as a solo adventurer! 

The last room of the castle held only a single treasure chest, clasped in the hands of a bird-like statute. Inside the chest, of course, was exactly what she'd been sent here for: a single severed, grotesque, possibly disease-infected, rat's tail. 

Rikku poked her head back into FuSoYa's room. "Do you have like a baggie or something I could carry this in?" 

*** * ***

And so Rikku was inducted into Bahamut's training regime and latest workout fad, NinjaFit. 

There was much to learn. Being a ninja meant more than throwing shuriken; it meant honor, duty, and clinging indefinitely to sheer walls. 

"Rikku, I need you to paint my wall," Bahamut proclaimed. "Also, the only paint I have is on the soles of this pair of shoes." 

"Nice try, but if you're trying to Karate Kid me, it's obvious you're trying to teach me wall-jumping. I mean, seriously?" 

But her first attempts at wall-jumping were a disaster. She either banged head-first into the wall or immediately fell back onto the gym mats Bahamut had placed beneath her. 

Then, Bahamut took her down to see the Etecoons in the furthest depths of his cavern. She watched the little green creatures ricochet from wall to wall with agility she thought she could never have. "Well, OK," she said. "Maybe I'll get it on my next run." 

"No," Bahamut said. "Never wait for a later chance to show what you can do. _This_ is the run." 

She wasn't allowed to leave the cave until she'd performed a wall-jump. Her attempts stretched on for hours, until she thought her knees couldn't take any more. But, then finally, she did it: She vaulted at one wall, grabbed hold of it, then sprung off in the direction of the opposite wall. A wall-jump. 

Meanwhile, she was flinging throwing stars at a training dummy. At first, she was lucky to even hit the dummy at all, but Bahamut kept her at it until she could land a headshot every time. Then she progressed from throwing stars to anything she could get her gloves on, until she could turn anything into a deadly throwing weapon: swords, axes, books, household spoons. 

Then: Two wall-jumps, first off one wall and then off the wall facing it, higher than ever before. 

Ninjas did it with one in each hand, so Rikku also practiced dual wielding various combinations of weapons: ninja blade + ninja blade, sword + whip, laser gun + crossbow, axe + stale French bread, BFG-9000 + Master Sword. 

Four straight wall-jumps. _Five_ straight wall-jumps. 

Her first smoke bomb blew up in her face, sending her into a coughing fit. But, day by day, she mastered the timing until she was so thoroughly enveloped in smoke that she would have had the Dharma Initiative running for cover. 

Ten wall-jumps. 

*** * ***

Her ninja training had passed in a blur, a montage of training and intensive study. Finally, one day Bahamut called her into his office and proclaimed, "I have nothing left to teach you." She bowed as he presented her with the garb of a ninja and an empty plaque. ("I couldn't find a guy up here to engrave it.") 

Bahamut clapped a claw on her shoulder. "You've grown from a boy into a man, Rikku." 

"I'm a lady." 

"Oh, well, I never know how to tell with you mammals, but congratulations," Bahamut said. He retreated into the cave and placed a phone call. "Look, I know this is at the last minute, but I'm going to need to change the invitations to say _Bat_ Mitzvah." 

Ninja blades strapped to her back, smoke bombs and throwing stars in her pouch, Rikku stepped out of the cave and prepared to face her destiny. 

**_CLASS CHANGE: NINJA_**

*** * ***

Before journeying to the Space Pirates' _SHIP_ , Rikku returned to the Lunar Lander to pick up her remaining food/Tang supplies and some more weapons. Now that she was a ninja, she needed all kind of badass equipment, right? She strapped four swords to her back, holstered a third pistol just in case, and filled up dozens of pouches' worth of throwing stars, smoke bombs, and moon rocks. (She'd seen this once in a comic book.) 

Taking on a whole crew of Space Pirates all by her lonesome seemed pretty scary, but a peculiar kind of self-assurance had been building in Rikku over the past few days. She'd already flown to the moon, pulled off ten straight wall-jumps, and done numerous other things she'd never have thought herself capable of. The World's Best Sidekick turned out to be tougher than she looked. 

There was one last thing to do before the final plunge. She turned the radio inside the Lunar Lander back on. "Rikku to CAPCOM, come in CAPCOM." 

"Rikku!" It was her pops. "Damn, we've been waiting days for you to call! The whole family—me, Brother, Yuna—has been taking shifts on the radio. Even got Shinra to send up the other rocket when you didn't call. Thank goodness you're okay; we've been frettin' more than a frustrated ferret ... worryin' more than a wounded wallaby ... carryin' on like a crying chocobo ..." 

He would have rambled on forever if she hadn't cut him off. "I'm coming home as soon as I can, Pops, but they actually need me up here. The moon's been invaded by Space Pirates, and not the kind that helps people. Just wanted to say I love you." 

And then she had a job to do. She turned the radio off, climbed back in her buggy, and set off on her mission, feeling more like a protagonist than she ever had before in her life. 

She parked her buggy some distance from the crater in which the Space Pirates were building their spaceship and disguised herself with a smoke bomb before she got any closer. The Space Pirate underlings were still hard at work laying down the walls of the master bathroom, the death laser room, and the latest trend in secret lair design: the procedurally generated labyrinth. Bikke and Ridley, however, were nowhere to be seen. _Probably out playing skee-ball._

She readied a second smoke bomb and prepared to move closer when she noticed the sign posted on the wall of the ship. _No smoking within fourteen feet of building entrance._ Darn. 

Instead, Rikku slipped inside the trailer at the edge of the work site. Just as she'd hoped, the blueprints of the spaceship were all laid out on a table. She could have studied them all to learn the layout of the base, but she had a better idea. She grabbed a pen, drew in a staircase from the side of the spaceship to the room marked "CONTROL ROOM," and ducked back out. 

Then she sat back and, like Bikke before her, enjoyed a packet of Tang while the Space Pirates went to work. 

Pretty soon, her new shortcut was finished. _Ha! Sequence break!_ She scrambled down the stairs, feeling rather clever, and approached the wider hallway at which the stairs terminated. 

She was almost at the foot of the stairs when the doors of the control room opened. With her ninja-like reflexes—no, her _actual_ ninja reflexes—Rikku jumped off the stairs and ducked into the shadows underneath. Her speed impressed even herself a little. _Yer a wizard, Rikku,_ she thought. 

Out of the control room stomped Ridley the dragon. He halted, an arm's length away from Rikku, the moment he saw the renovated hallway. "Hey, who put these stairs here?" he growled. "This is where the home theater room was going to go ... gonna ruin the resale value on this place." 

Rikku was terrified by Ridley, as were even people who had previously fought and vanquished him many times, but she knew she had to get past him somehow. _All right, Rikku. This is what you trained for. You got this._

Her hand moved to one of her three belts. She did have her pouches of shuriken and moon rocks, but they seemed too small to do damage to a massive dragon unless he opened his mouth and there was some kind of glowing spot inside. There had to be something else here she could throw. She looked around for a sword or expensive vase or unplugged lamp, but found nothing. 

Ridley tromped up and down the hall, partially on patrol and partially looking for the idiot who had built stairs where his home theater room was going to go. Rikku wondered if there was a chance to slip by him. But Ridley was larger than her, obstructing most of the hallway, and his serpentine neck swayed this way and that, leaving no corner unobserved. 

But surely this guy ended his rounds eventually, right? Maybe she could wait until the guards were changing shifts and take advantage of that. Impatiently, she watched Ridley walk down the hallway, back into the control room, and out into the hallway again. Into the control room, out of the control room. Into the control room, out of the control room... 

An enraged voice suddenly bellowed, "THAT'S SIXTY-FOUR TIMES! I HATE YOU!!! THE 8² CURSE OF EXTINCTION IS UPON YOU!" 

Zeromus exploded out of the ground, smashing right through the steel floor of the spaceship. Rikku, hiding under the stairs, escaped unnoticed as Zeromus flew right at Ridley and black-holed him out of existence, never to be heard from again. Seizing her opportunity, Rikku jumped out from under the stairs and sprinted for the control room. Behind her, she heard Zeromus smashing apart several doors. 

Inside the control room, Rikku found Bikke playing Snake on his phone. "Don't be interruptin' me; I'm in the middle o' plannin'!" he called before he'd even looked up. Then he saw Rikku, watched his _SHIP_ being demolished behind her, and did a double-take. "Ye've got afterburners of steel to be takin' on the mightiest swordsman in the galaxy, Earthlubber! Get her!" 

Nine Space Pirates, arranged in a perfect grid formation, rushed her. Bikke went back to playing Snake. 

She downed the front row of Space Pirates with three quick shuriken throws. "Oh my God, she killed Biggs and Wedge!" exclaimed one of the other pirates. 

Bikke didn't look up from his phone. Rikku rolled her eyes and added, "You bastards!" herself. 

The six remaining pirates jumped on Rikku from all directions. She managed to kick one out of the air, then whirled and clobbered another with her stale French bread. 

"All tremble before the swords of Bikke!" 

"You're not even fighting, dummy!" she yelled back. Rikku took out two more space pirates by throwing swords at them. One of the remaining pirates got in a good claw swipe to the face, but she grabbed her other pair of swords and stabbed him. The last pirate she dispatched by hurling her spare gun at him. The pirate gurgled. "How'd... no arrows..." 

As soon as Bikke saw that his underlings had been defeated, he bolted out of the room faster than Rikku had ever seen anyone run, so quickly he didn't even bother to take his phone with him. Rikku picked it up and threw it after him. What a goober. 

A giant crash made the entire ceiling shake. Zeromus was still on a rampage. 

Remembering Bahamut's instructions about exterminating the Metroids, Rikku hurried on to the room Bikke had been "guarding." It was a tall vertical shaft. At the lowest level of the shaft, a short staircase ran between several tiers' worth of biohazard containment tubes, arranged vertically. Most of them were still empty—the spaceship was still under construction, after all—but one held a small, pulsing green creature. 

"Aww, he's _cute_. I'm not going to exterminate him." Rikku tucked the tube with the Metroid under her arm. "You and me are gonna be space buddies, li'l dude." 

But she was hardly out of danger. Zeromus was continuing to demolish the _SHIP_ and all of its foolish, superfluous doors. A light fixture came crashing to the floor behind her and started to dissolve in the acid leaking up from below. Rikku realized that going back the way she'd came, back towards Zeromus, meant certain death. The only way out was up. 

She took a deep breath. _This is the run,_ she told herself. 

And, so, like countless other video game characters before her, Rikku ascended a sheer vertical shaft by jumping back and forth between two walls. 

One wall jump, then another. Beneath her, the bubbling acid rose quickly, promising a grisly death if she missed so much as a single wall jump. She landed her fifth jump, then her sixth. The walls buckled and swayed. She was just starting to worry which would happen first, losing count of her jumps or her legs giving out, when she made a final vault out of the shaft and collapsed on the rocky lunar surface. 

"Twenty-one," she panted. "Twenty-one wall jumps." 

She rolled away from the collapsing _SHIP_ , the enclosed Metroid specimen tucked tightly under her arm, before finally mustering the strength to climb to her feet. Her victory started to sink in. She'd done it. All by herself! Not Yunie, not Tidus, not the cactuars, not Schtolteheim Reinbach III. Little Rikku, Rikku the brave, Rikku the Al Bhed with her swirly green eyes, had saved the day. 

"I'm not a ninja ... I'm a _hero_!" she panted. 

At the cusp of the crater, she turned back and watched Zeromus destroy what was left of the spaceship. Thank goodness she hadn't spent any more time hanging out with that weirdo. She had _real_ friends back in Spira that didn't care many how times she walked through a door. 

She drove the buggy back to the Lunar Lander, picked up the radio, and spoke three words: "I'm coming home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original version of Final Fantasy IV has a bug that crashes the game if you walk through a door too many times, which [Square's newsletter tried to explain away](http://www.lakupo.com/qu/fanfics/images/Ogopogo_Examiner.jpg) as "Zeromus tracking the player from the moon." Of course, it's actually just a programming error, but I thought the idea of Zeromus counting how many doors everyone walked through just begged to be written up.


	4. In Space, No One Can Hear You Squee

Rikku's head still buzzed with euphoria from her victory over the Space Pirates as she returned the Lunar Lander to the _Mercury_ and began her return trip to Spira. As the moon pulled away below her, she looked back at the Spiran flag she'd planted, determined to keep it in her sight as long as possible. Thanks to her, there was now another corner of the universe that would be forever Spira; that flag was the proof that she came, she saw, she opened a can of whoop-ass.

_And_ , as a bonus, she had a brand new favorite thing. "Who's a good girl?" she cooed, having since decided that Metroid was a girl. She wiggled her fingers in front of the glass containment tube. "Who's Mommy's favorite little xenomorph?" 

The rest of her family, however, was still not quite sold yet on the whole concept. She spent the next day and a half on the radio trying to explain to each one of them in turn that _yes_ , she was safe; _no_ , the Space Pirates weren't a threat to anyone anymore; _yes_ , she was bringing home a new pet; and _no_ , she could no longer be claimed as a dependent on their taxes. 

"What is this I hear about _aliens_?" Brother said, starting the whole conversation again for the third time. 

She sighed. "Seriously, you guys, everything's cool. The last Metroid is in captivity. The galaxy is at p—OH NO IT'S GOT ME!! AAAAHHHH!" 

The Metroid had broken out of its containment tube, as Metroids often did, and attached itself to Rikku's face. She rolled around the floor, trying to shake it off, but wasn't able to get rid of it until she released several smoke bombs. 

"Rikku!" Brother called over the intercom in his shaky Continental speech. "Are you very OK? What is the going on?" 

Rikku watched the Metroid dance through the air as it sought another opportunity to strike her. She was incensed. "I was trying to adopt you! You are a problem child!" 

The two adversaries squared off in zero gravity, the Metroid angling for a clean line of attack and Rikku trying to drift away from it. The Metroid made another dive for Rikku's face. She pushed off the wall just in time to get away, and the Metroid sailed harmlessly past her to the other side of the chamber. 

_Hmm, I know_ , Rikku thought. _"Metroid dislikes smoke," right?_ She hurled a smoke bomb at the Metroid, but it didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest. A Quake spell she cast did no damage to the floating Metroid, and a Light Arrow bounced harmlessly off it. And to Rikku's horror, her loaf of stale French bread simply shattered in two over the Metroid's gelatinous body. 

Man, if stale bread didn't hurt this thing, what _could_? 

*** * ***

Down in Besaid, Brother handed control of the radio off to Shinra, who did his best to piece together the situation and provide his typically nonchalant advice. 

"Rikku, this is CAPCOM," Shinra spoke. "I understand that there's a bio hazard loose in the rocket. I'm afraid that we have to ask you to step it up as a monster hunter, or this may be your final fight. I know you're not a street fighter, but if you don't have a magic sword, you should be able to improvise a flamethrower or summon a phoenix, right? Lots of aliens are vulnerable to a breath of fire." 

"Been there, burned that," Rikku said. "So far, I've discovered this thing is immune to fire, lightning, Tang, earth, Light Arrows, and bread. Kinda running out of ideas here, and it keeps trying to eat my face." 

Rikku could already anticipate Shinra's response and mouthed it along with him: "I'm just a kid," he said. "But we're putting out calls to every cryptozoologist in Spira." 

*** * ***

Metroids appeared curiously resistant to "Your Mom" jokes, so Rikku moved on to the next category on her checklist: Ice. She crawled into the back and grabbed the spare tank of rocket coolant: a pressurized canister packed full of Ice Rods. 

As the Metroid approached, she shouted, "Look behind you, a three-headed Tonberry!" 

It was the oldest trick in the book, but Rikku's loud voice distracted the Metroid just long enough for her to smash the canister of Ice Rods over the Metroid's head. Instantly, the Metroid was turned into a solid block of ice. 

Perfect! Crisis averted, and she could even chill her Tang on this thing now. Heck, she could probably even stand on it and use it as a platform if she needed to. 

Rikku floated back to the front of the capsule and settled in to re-reading _People en Al Bhed_ for the umpteenth time and working on her poetry. Would it be pretentious to write an epic poem detailing her victory over the Space Pirates? Could you even write a legit saga if you weren't a Viking? 

She'd moved onto trying to decipher Bahamut's dragon tablet when she decided she needed a snack break. Time to check on her Tang. She crawled into the back where she'd left the frozen Metroid and made a horrific discovery. 

"Houston, we're pretty much boned." 

Color was starting to return to the Metroid. 

"What?" Shinra asked over the radio. "What's going on?" 

"Metroid's unfreezing." 

"Well, freeze it again." 

"I'm out of coolant." 

"Okay, yeah, we _are_ pretty much boned." 

The news knocked all sense and feeling out of her. She stood there motionless, feeling like she couldn't be a smaller or less important part of this cold, unfeeling universe, until she finally squeaked out, "...am I going to die?" 

Well, it had to happen sometime. There were only two certain things in life, and she'd already done their taxes. At least she'd had a chance to be the hero once. She'd proved that she was capable of more than even she herself had thought. Still, as someone who didn't have any belief in the Farplane, dying seemed kind of weird-slash-scary. One minute she'd still be experiencing the same grand world of adventure and friends and math, and then the next she'd just be ... nothing. Forever. She supposed that didn't really seem so bad. Just strange. 

"Did you get that?" 

She realized she hadn't heard a thing Shinra had been saying for the past minute. "Sorry, say again?" 

"Listen, our only chance is to blow up the Metroid before it unfreezes. I calculated that it's going to take five missiles. We can't risk an explosion inside your tiny little capsule, so you're going to need to do it out in space." 

"In _space_?" Rikku tried follow the conversation with one half of her brain while another half battled her mortal terror and a third half kept an eye on the unfreezing Metroid. Unfortunately, the math didn't really add up. 

"Yeah. You'll need to secure yourself to the _Mercury_ , of course. But we packed a tether in case you needed to do an emergency spacewalk." 

It sounded pretty dangerous, but Rikku was a rational enough person to understand that _some_ plan was better than _no_ plan. And when one of the Metroid's tentacles twitched, she realized she'd better get a move on. "All right. If I don't make it back, tell Yunie that I love her and not to forget to deduct her mortgage interest." 

*** * ***

Mission Command was in an uproar. The whole world had been watching as they had prepared to welcome back the first woman to walk on the moon—only to now face the possibility of losing her on the way home. Around Spira, heads were bowed and hands were cupped in prayer. The word went out on the streets that the _Mercury_ was in danger, and practically every Blitzball practice, family game night, and after-school tutoring session came to a halt as all of Spira gathered to listen in as one heroic woman fought her way back from space. 

"Rikku, I'm taking over as CAPCOM," Rin spoke into the radio. "Believe me when I say we have everyone in Spira rooting for you. We're going to get you home safe." 

Yuna was running in circles, Tidus was trying to calm her, and even Paine looked distraught. "What the hell have you done?" Cid raged at the mission commanders. 

Shinra shrugged. "I'm just—" 

Cid's fist pounded the control panel in front of Shinra, making him jump. "I don't care if you're just a kid! That's just _my_ kid up there!" he roared. 

A squeaking noise sounded at the door. Lobelia of the Cactuar Nation stood in the doorway, offering up a spacesuit and a picture of the Cactuars' latest rocket. In this crisis, with the life of an adventurer on the line, borders had lost all meaning. They were all space-o-nauts now. 

Yuna held up the spacesuit. It would be a great fit for a person who was two feet tall and had no head. "Thanks, but..." 

Rin tried to forestall the growing panic. "Don't worry; we've got a good chance. There's still time to blow up the Metroid, and Rikku has spent lots of time underwater; I'm sure she can handle a spacewalk." 

Yuna clapped her hands over her ears. "Rin, please shut up! I'm trying to think!" And if _Yuna_ was telling you to shut up, you knew you'd done wrong. 

She rushed out onto the beach, hoping that something, anything would come to mind that would help them rescue Rikku. 

Cid hurried after her. "Yuna, you've got to do something. That's my little girl up there! She's your cousin!" 

Yuna knew that it was hard for them to conceive of a world in which Lady Yuna didn't always come rushing in at the last minute to save everyone. "I know! I'm _trying_!" 

Bismarck splashed up from the water. "Yuna! Is _now_ a good time to show you my magic trick?" 

"NO! IT'S NOT!" 

"Are you sure? I think this could really help Rikku." 

"...okay." 

She wondered what things had come to that she was letting a talking whale show her a magic trick in the hopes of getting her best friend back from outer space, but life often carried you in strange directions. 

Bismarck's face lit up. "OK! OK! You're gonna love this. Here goes." 

He backed up to give himself more room, then swam forwards in a rushing, diving zig-zag, picking up more and more speed. Water splashed everywhere as he flipped into the air with a giant somersault, and— 

**GESTALT MODE ACTIVATED**

As he slowly descended back to the ground, the transformation began. His skin turned to metal, his eyes and face disappeared to be replaced by lights and complicated circuits, and rocket thrusters emerged from his tail. Before Yuna soon stood a spaceship: the Lunar Whale. 

*** * ***

Rikku shoved the partially-frozen Metroid out the airlock of the _Mercury_. She changed into her Alchemist dressphere and, missile launcher in hand, jumped out after it. 

Only the single tether line now connected her to the _Mercury_ and to life. She couldn't help but think that this was the most precarious, most dangerous position she'd ever been in. Never had she been more removed from all the things that usually kept her safe: Pops, Yunie, her air-conditioned apartment, save points. 

"Rikku!" Yuna's voice suddenly came in over the radio. "Rikku, I have a spaceship! Forget about the Metroid and sit tight in the _Mercury_ , and I'll come pick up you." 

"NO!" Rikku hugged her missile launcher to her chest. She wasn't about to admit defeat when she was _this_ close to proving she could save the day on her own. "Yunie, I promised Bahamut I wouldn't let this thing get to Spira. Don't worry. I've _got_ this." 

"It's too dangerous!" Yuna pleaded. She'd just found a way to rescue Rikku; she wasn't about to abandon that opportunity now. "Don't worry about the Metroid; I'm sure we'll deal with it somehow. The important thing right now is rescuing you!" 

"Yunie, you can't always be saving everybody!" 

The tether unfurled as Rikku drifted out into space after the Metroid. Despite the danger, despite being suddenly thrown into a crisis she'd in no way planned for, Rikku felt a kind of grace she'd rarely known. Her movements were calm, her heartbeat measured. She'd come to understand that she was braver and tougher than she thought. And if there was any way for people to become stronger and better than they were the day before, if there was any way of triumphing over your fears rather than them triumphing over you, if there was any way for even little ol' Rikku to truly matter and be loved, it had to be here, facing down a great challenge head-on. She would be at her absolute best, because she had to be. 

"I can do it on my own this time. You have to trust me." 

*** * ***

Yuna stood on the bridge of the Lunar Whale, watching the scene unfold from the bridge. It was kind of weird being inside Bismarck (even if he had, in fact, swallowed her whole once before), but being in outer space was great! Even if she hadn't traveled all the way to the moon, at least she was among the stars, right? 

Her hand twitched towards the crystal that guided the ship. She was used to rushing in to save everyone; she expected to be the hero that Spira depended on. Doing nothing didn't suit her. "Rikku, are you sure you're OK?" she called over the radio. 

"Yes! Just hush up and let me do this, and I'll see you in a moment. Geez!" 

Yuna sat on her hands and squirmed. 

*** * ***

Rikku drifted as far away from the _Mercury_ as the tether would carry her so that she could minimize the risk to her vessel. Now it was time to blow up this bratty little Metroid before it woke back up. 

She raised her Alchemist cannon and fired one missile into the Metroid. It was a direct hit, but the recoil sent Rikku drifting backwards. Fortunately, all the time she'd spent diving under Pops's salvage ship had prepared her well for confusing, three-dimensional environments without a minimap in the corner. She tugged on the tether and reoriented herself. 

Shinra cut in over the radio, "Rikku, Paine asked me to tell you, 'Go get 'em, monkey.'" 

"Roger that. This is the run." 

"I don't get it." 

"Uh, you had to be there." 

The Metroid's tentacles started to shake, and Rikku knew she'd need to pick up the pace to destroy this thing before it unfroze. Clinging to the tether to stabilize herself, she fired several more missiles. Two hits. Three hits. Four. 

Now all she needed to do was not get too cocky. She was already envisioning herself back in Besaid, sipping from her _World's Best Sidekick_ mug and watching the Psyches stomp the Aurochs in Blitzball. 

The tether suddenly bunched up in her hands, and Rikku realized it had come unattached from her vessel. _Crap_. But it was going to take a lot more than that to faze her at this point. She could handle a few surprises, and she still had her missile launcher to propel her. With her back to the _Mercury_ , she fired the fifth missile, letting the recoil push her back towards the _Mercury_. She watched the missile spin towards the Metroid. It struck the monster head-on, and the Metroid exploded, leaving behind a 1-Up. 

The last Metroid was in pieces. The galaxy was in captivity. 

And, of course, there was no question as to the first person she called. "Yunie! Yunie! I did it!" 

"Great! Now sit still and let me come pick you up." 

Rikku climbed back in the airlock of the _Mercury_ and watched as Yuna's enormous whale-shaped spaceship approached her. She fired her own vessel's rockets a little to guide it closer. The _Mercury_ sailed gently into the loading bay of the much larger Lunar Whale and came to a stop. It was over. 

Rikku climbed out of her capsule, muscles aching but head spinning with that mixture of exhilaration and exhaustion that could only come from having exceeded every limit one thought one might have. She stumbled onto the Lunar Whale's bridge and came to a halt. Feeling pride, relief, gratitude, and immense affection all at once, Rikku could only speak the name that embodied them all: "Yunie." 

Yuna rushed to embrace her cousin and best friend forever. "You're safe," she gasped. "Praise the Fayth, you're safe." 

"Yeah," Rikku panted. "I made it. _I made it_." 

Once there weren't expressions of relief waiting to pour off her lips, Rikku couldn't help but look around and marvel at the hi-tech vehicle in which she now found herself. Glowing walls and floors! Some type of artificial gravity! A big ol' Chocobo in the back! "Yunie, where did you get this freakin' awesome spaceship all of sudden?" 

Yuna kind of didn't want to answer that question. "I, uh..." 

"IT'S ME!" a mechanical voice boomed forth from the walls. "GUESS WHO SAVED THE DAY? YOUR OLD FRIEND, BISMARCK! HOORAY FOR BISMARCK! IT WAS ALL BECAUSE OF BISMARCK!" 

"We're inside BISMARCK?" Rikku gasped. "Never mind, I'm going back into space." 

"OH, GEE, THAT SURE MAKES ME FEEL GREAT." 

Yuna laid a hand on Rikku's shoulder. "C'mon. Everyone back in Spira's been rooting for you. Let's go say hello." 

"As long as _you_ give the speech. You saw I'm not very good at that." 

But that turned Rikku's thoughts back to the whole adventure she'd just been through, and she started jumping up and down with excitement. What an amazing experience it all had been! "Yunie! Yunie! I did it! I walked on the moon! It was _amazing_! And there was this weirdo who gets mad at people for going through too many doors, and another guy who was a pirate who doesn't do anything, and random battles with flans all over the place, and I went through a series of trials to get a smelly rat tail ... well, don't worry what it sounds like; it was awesome. And! I'm a ninja now, Yunie, a ninja! I've got even more zippers than before, and all these pouches full of—" 

She stopped when she realized Yuna didn't look excited in the least. "...what?" 

Yuna stamped her foot. "How do you think _we_ felt through all of this when you were up there having fun?" Now that Rikku's safety was guaranteed, she was starting to get mad at her again. "You didn't send word to us for days. We thought we might lose you!" 

Rikku was all too ready to play this game. "Oh yeah? How many times have I had to worry about _you_? Your pilgrimage, Yunie? Seymour? When you were sitting around depressed in Besaid for two years, how about then?" 

As her counterattack, Yuna brought forth a couple of sheets of papers on which she'd been writing one of her speeches, the ink smeared in several places by tears. "I had to write this in case you didn't make it back!" 

That stopped Rikku cold. "...I'm sorry." She had thought it pretty awesome that she'd walked on the freakin' _moon_ (and still did), and she was proud of herself for taking down the space pirates all by herself, but right now she felt pretty awful. "I just wanted to prove I wasn't going to always need you for everything." 

"I need _you_." 

And in that moment, now that they realized they'd both had to be terrified for the other, anything that had come between them fell away. Rikku flopped into Yuna's arms at the same as Yuna into hers, and there they stood reunited at last: Lady High Summoner and World's Best Sidekick, but more importantly, best friends forever. 

They both were glad that they could have screaming fights with each other—it wouldn't be much of a friendship if they couldn't survive a few differences—but, all the same, they liked it a whole lot better once they were back on each other's good sides. 

"I know, Yunie, I know," Rikku murmured into Yuna's shoulder. "I guess I needed to prove what I could do to _myself_." 

"I understand," Yuna said back. 

"HEY, DON'T _I_ GET A HUG TOO? A HUG FOR BISMARCK, FOR SAVING THE DAY!" 

She _had_ proven something, hadn't she? Rikku looked out the windows, back at the moon, at the caves and the craters and the crystal tower. Perhaps she'd be back someday, perhaps not. But regardless of whether she ever again crossed paths with low gravity, there was now a Spiran flag flying where no human had stood or walked before. She had been the first, not Yuna or Paine or Leblanc or anyone else, and no one could take that away from her. She could spend the rest of her life holding her head high—and being extremely conscious about the number of doors she walked through. 

Yuna asked, "Are we done being mad at each other? Because I had something I wanted to tell you." She stared out in the space for a moment and drew a deep breath, as if preparing for something, and then said, "Luoo-ha-kuknae-deemae-deeayoo-ha-ku." 

This elicited an utterly blank stare from Rikku. 

"Luoo-ha-kuknae-deemae-deeayoo-ha-ku," repeated Yuna. 

"What is that? Is that supposed to be Al Bhed? Oh geez, Yunie, your pronunciation, oh geez." 

Yuna looked down at the floor to try to hide the blush spreading over her cheeks. "I was trying to learn how to say 'congratulations' to you for when you got back." 

Rikku laughed. It was a terrible attempt at speaking Al Bhed, but that made it _Yuna_ , and that was what Rikku really cared about. "How about, from now, _you_ handle the speeches and _I_ handle the Al Bhed translation? You know, 'cause we're a team." 

And so with the silver light of the Moon pulling away in the distance and Spira hanging before them like a fragile blue egg, Yuna sat down with pen and paper. When they touched down on Besaid, she would tell the tale of the _Mercury_ and the moon, and Rikku would be presented not just with a medal, but with what Yuna knew she really needed: a brand new coffee mug, this one bearing the new inscription "FIRST WOMAN ON THE MOON." 

In the crowd, one lone Wookiee sounded a plaintive howl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Produced by:** DEER FORCE  
>  **Wardrobe design:** Rob Liefeld  & Tetsuya Nomura
> 
>  **In memoriam:** Patrick "Bikke" Smith
> 
> **Special Thanks:**  
>  Kitarin Astala  
> The Final Fantasy Wiki  
> Martha Fraundorf  
> Benjamin Miles  
> Mike Wasson  
> Wikipedia
> 
> **Completion Time:** 9 days  
>  **Item Collection:** 73%
> 
> **SEE YOU NEXT MISSION**


End file.
